The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 21.0349 Thursday, 26 August 2010
[1] From: David Evett <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: August 2, 2010 11:11:09 PM EDT
Subj: Re: SHK 21.0340 Two Gents at Stratford Festival
[2] From: Mark Aune <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: August 3, 2010 7:04:37 AM EDT
Subj: RE: SHK 21.0340 Two Gents at Stratford Festival
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: David Evett <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: August 2, 2010 11:11:09 PM EDT
Subject: 21.0340 Two Gents at Stratford Festival
Comment: Re: SHK 21.0340 Two Gents at Stratford Festival
>I find it impossible to believe that even (or particularly) a trained and
>therefore traumatised bear could be relied upon to enter and exit on cue
>without being led on a chain, which would defeat the purpose of the effect.
>They are unpredictable. I certainly would not relish being in the vicinity
>of a grown bear that wasn't both chained and muzzled-particularly in the
>equally unpredictable and scary-to-the-bear public theatre audience.
A question here is whether the play was first performed at Blackfriars, with
something like a lights-down at the end of the first half. If so, the bear did
not have to do more than appear briefly through the center-stage entrance,
perhaps through a pair of curtains, which means that a bear-ward at the other
end of a controlling chain would have been dimly if at all visible. And a
similar effect could have been managed, I think, at the Globe.
David Evett
[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Mark Aune <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: August 3, 2010 7:04:37 AM EDT
Subject: 21.0340 Two Gents at Stratford Festival
Comment: RE: SHK 21.0340 Two Gents at Stratford Festival
Dear all,
Having just returned from Stratford ON, I can confirm that a real dog, a basset
hound named Otto. Its understudy is named Keppy, breed unknown.
As for Winter's Tale, the bear was not real, but impressive.
Best,
Mark
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The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 21.0346 Thursday, 26 August 2010
[1] From: Hardy M. Cook <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Thursday, August 26, 2010
Subj: Duration of Performances and Lengths of Plays
[2] From: Steve Urkowitz <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Saturday, August 21, 2010 10:50 PM
Subj: Duration of Performances and Lengths of Plays
[3] From: Michael J. Hirrel <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Monday, August 23, 2010 11:03 PM
Subj: Duration of Performances and Lengths of Plays
[4] From: David Evett <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: August 2, 2010 10:14:28 PM EDT
Subj: Re: SHK 21.0335 Duration of Performances and Lengths of Plays
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Hardy M. Cook <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Thursday, August 26, 2010
Subject: Duration of Performances and Lengths of Plays
On Tuesday, July 20, 2010 (http://www.shaksper.net/archives/2010/0300.html), I
announced that "The lead article, Michael J. Hirrel's "Duration of Performances
and Lengths of Plays: How Shall We Beguile the Lazy Time?" in my most recent
Shakespeare Quarterly (61.2 (2010): 159-182) addresses some of the most
fascinating issues being debated in Early Modern theatrical scholarship: the
length of Elizabethan-Jacobean performances and the subsequent effect that
performance time had on the length of those playtexts."
At the end of this post I asked, "There are many subscribers to this list who
are better versed than I in these matters, and I am curious what they think
about Hirrel's essay."
I received a message from Steve Urkowitz that he had submitted two responses in
the discussion, but they apparently had gotten lost or overlooked. His responses
are below. Also, I receive a message from the author of the article Michael
Hirrel who asked if he could respond; his messages are also included below.
[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Steve Urkowitz <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Saturday, August 21, 2010 10:50 PM
Subject: Duration of Performances and Lengths of Plays
(1) July 20
Michael Hirrel's Shakespeare Quarterly essay will prove to be one of the most
important correctives to unfounded textual theories and factoids which have slid
into dominance over the last few decades. Proposals that Shakespeare's company
took his long "original" scripts and trimmed them down to two thirds of their
length in order to fit into a hypothetically desirable shorter span have been
widely accepted. Those proposals, Hirrel shows, have been based on extremely
partial readings of ambiguous evidence frequently taken out of context.
Consulting more documentary material, he is able to show that the more extensive
evidence about the length of a theatrical performance by adult professional
companies might be best interpreted as representing a relatively constant,
approximately four hour total span of time when the audience would be in the
playhouse within which would be played a play plus accompanying entertainments
before and after. The accompaniments could run long or short, depending on the
length of the play. The key here is that Hirrel cites and incorporates into his
argument lots of evidence, and (unlike Lukas Erne) he doesn't have to dismiss
what the evidence insists upon.
If indeed Hirrel's argument is recognized for what I feel is its valid
interpretation of a far wider array of evidence than had previously been
offered, then arguments about the provenance of Shakespearean "bad quartos" will
need vast re-evaluation. We may have to go back to reconsider that the
manuscript underlying Q1 Hamlet was in existence prior to the manuscript
underlying Q2. Same-same for the earliest printings of Romeo & Juliet, Merry
Wives, Henry V, and Henry VI parts 2 and 3.
Joys of reconsidering,
Steve Urquartowitz, resurgens
==================================================================
(2) July 30
The reasonable concern about daylight as a constraint on the length of performance
is simply not supported by what we can discover from the records. Robert B Graves,
LIGHTING THE SHAKESPEAREAN STAGE, 1567-1642, demonstrates that daylight was not a
factor. Instead, he cites ample evidence that plays carried on in very dim light,
sometimes augmented by candles or cresset-lights, even in winter. Evidence should
trump even the most reasonable-sounding theory.
Ever,
Steve Urquartowitz
[3]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Michael J. Hirrel <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Monday, August 23, 2010 11:03 PM
Subject: Duration of Performances and Lengths of Plays
Dear Hardy,
I have read the string of posts about my story with considerable interest, and I
thank you for giving me an opportunity to comment. I also want to thank the
posters themselves. It's truly gratifying to think that my story has stimulated
so much fascinating discussion. To them, individually:
Nicole Coonradt:
Good question. No, in fact no one at the time actually counted the number of
lines in a play. Number counts are a modern construct. But they are useful to us
nonetheless. As I say in the article, acting companies were experienced buyers
of play scripts. They probably knew just by looking at a script essentially how
much time it would take to perform. And they probably knew in advance how much
time they wanted to devote to a particular play. That information presumably was
communicated to the playwrights, who in turn were experienced at their task, and
knew how to translate time into script length.
John W. Kennedy:
Macbeth, as Hardy points out, is surprisingly short for a Shakespeare tragedy.
Numerous clues in the Folio text, which is the only one we have, suggest the
reason. The text as printed has been cut considerably. Why? Figure that one out
and I will buy you dinner at a very good restaurant. But I will note in this
respect that Macbeth is utterly an anomaly. Otherwise, the Folio gives us more
or less complete texts. To earn you dinner, your explanation must account for
that fact.
Gabriel Egan, and posters in the following colloquy:
This is an interesting discussion. The choice of verbs between "see" and "hear"
may well be indicative of psychological predispositions. But before one pushes
this evidence too far, let me note that opera fans, of whom I am one, typically
say that they are going to "see" an opera performance. Almost none of them are
going primarily for that purpose. A good thing too, considering the acting
skills of most opera singers.
Justin Alexander:
Good points. I completely agree that we must not make assumptions about how long
the groundlings would have stood. It's not our culture. What do we know about
what they "would" have done? The concept "would have done" should be banished
from scholarly discussion about the Elizabethans. In this case, alone let's
consider just a few points. No, we would not stand for three and one quarter
hours to see/hear a Shakespeare play. But how long would we stand to see/hear
the Rolling Stones? I seem to recall standing with a very large crowd for about
five hours. On the other hand, few Elizabethans had desk jobs, and fewer still
among the groundlings. Most of them stood all day just to earn their livings.
And if they stood as well in the late afternoon at the Globe, at least they
could move about there, and come and go as they pleased.
William Ray, Larry Weiss, Tom Reedy and Steve Roth:
Thank you all. These are valuable contributions. If I do a revision, I'll be
thinking about whether to use them, and if I do I intend to cite you guys.
Aaron Azlant:
The availability of light is indeed an important factor to be considered with
respect to the lengths of performances. I discuss it at pages 161-62 and 167-69
in the story.
Again, Hardy, thank you so much for this opportunity to vent, and equal thanks
to your posters.
Very truly yours,
Mike
[4]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: David Evett <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: August 2, 2010 10:14:28 PM EDT
Subject: 21.0335 Duration of Performances and Lengths of Plays
Comment: Re: SHK 21.0335 Duration of Performances and Lengths of Plays
As I understand it, one of the major considerations in play performance length is
the amount of sunlight available in the afternoon before dark. Presumably the
FrankenHamlet that modern editors have assembled out of folio/quarto editions, for
instance, would have been too long to accommodate this concern.
Even in mid-April, the sun sets in London right around 9 p.m. (solar time).
Allow an hour for folks to get home before the city became dark and dangerous.
Enough daylight after 1 p.m. for two performances of three-plus hours.
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/astronomy.html?n=136&month=4&year=2010&obj
=sun&afl=-11&day=1
Temporally,
Dave Evett
_______________________________________________________________
S H A K S P E R: The Global Shakespeare Discussion List
Hardy M. Cook, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
The S H A K S P E R Web Site <http://www.shaksper.net>
DISCLAIMER: Although SHAKSPER is a moderated discussion list, the opinions
expressed on it are the sole property of the poster, and the editor assumes no
responsibility for them.
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